I got my first job as a Programmer Analyst Trainee for Cognizant Technology Solutions in 2003, it was the time when Indian IT was trying to fight the recession phase. The Y2K which brought a big boost to the IT industry caused an explosion of offshore companies, then there were layoff’s and slowdown with people scrambling to fix things. I was one of the lucky graduate who got a campus placement. I must say that Cognizant had maintained a very good standard for recruiting, hiring & training. The initial training session was hectic, but then we were randomly placed in projects. That also meant that life was much less busy, we were the junior most employees in the company and we had the liberty to be playful & happy. It took an year for us to move into billable projects, when I joined a project I must say that I had the most young & enthusiastic team in the Insurance account.
Going to office was a joy, we had helpful and kind people all over the place. With that setting, we always had a very enriching start to an IT career.
We do measure happiness & success using a different yardstick at every phase of life. Even though my pay-slip looked like a grocery bill, it was enough to have a decent life in a metro. Work was all about doing the best out of all the small things we knew & the team bonding that it brought. While, we had different roles in the team there was no one who was pretentiously superior or inferior in the organization. Team would easily coordinate frequent team outings, typically an excursion model where we could take a day off and be gone for a 3 day long weekend.
This is an experience from one such team outing.

One of those times where life gives you a good solid reality check.
We had made plans to visit Kodaikanal – a hill station in Tamil Nadu, more popularly known as ‘Princess of Hill Stations’.
The overall expense for the trip was close to INR 1500, out of which about 60% was for the travel & stay. There were not too many avenues to spend money. Selfie was not invented then, cell phones were communication devices with no camera. We had plenty of trekking & sightseeing to do, my digital point & shoot camera with about 512Mb of storage was enough.

Beautiful Kodai
It was the second day of the trip when we were trying to explore places around the Dolphin nose. The place was full of pear trees covered with fruits. We wandered off track following a water stream. The water was crystal clear and we could see some colorful fish swimming in that. After about a mile, we hit a dead end with a rock blocking our way. We thought that it would be a good point to return, just then we saw a bunch of kids running around that place. One of those kids came to us and asked if we wanted to see a special spot, the world was still a reliable place during that time; we followed him . It was great fun jumping across rocks and trying to catch up with the agility of those kids who are a native of that place. They led us to a small pond that was surrounded by huge rocks, the place was not less than any mystical wonderland with crystal clear water flowing under a cave with nice colorful stones in the water. After spending some time there, we took a few pictures and we started to head back. Me & my friend were casually talking to these kids. One of them was supposedly the most enthusiastic in the group, his name was Ramkumar. He was 7 years old, a 2nd grade govt school student. He told us a lot of things about the life of the people on the beautiful hill. How they were totally cut off from the city, how they lived in complete harmony with nature and that he would some day travel outside this place to see what is there in the outer world.
While parting our ways, we wanted to give a little something for the kids. Usually buying a few candy would help, there were no shops around so we decided to give some money. We did not carry a lot of cash as the tour expenses had been paid off and we had some change for minor purchases.

Life through a Child’s eye

We searched and got out all the small denomination currency that was in our pocket, it came close to 35 Rupees. We gave the 3 smaller kids 5 rupee each and we gave Ramkumar 20 Rupees. He was filled with Joy as he saw the money. We thanked him for his guidance and wished him good luck. Just while leaving we shamefully asked if the money would be enough for him to buy some chocolates or toys. Kodaikanal has some of the best home-made chocolates that I have tasted. They have some exotic flavors like Rum Raisin, fruit & nut etc. We were wondering what flavors would he buy. His answer was quite touching.
He told us that first thing he would do is to take this & run to his Mom to handover the money. We felt that as a responsible act, yet we wanted to enquire if there is anything beyond that transaction. He told us that the household expenses was managed by his mother & executed by him. They were a family of 4 living on the hill in a small house. His dad had no job and he would leave the house in search of any temporary work, most of the days he would return with no money but would get some grocery for minor help he would have done at the market. As they were below poverty line, the government would pay them approx. 25 Rupees per week. He said that out of that 25, they would buy only rice, oil and condiments from the market. The subsidized rice would cost them about 4-5Rs a Kilo. They would manage with a little over 3Kg of rice a week. They had no way to stock rice and so they would send the kid to get the weekly supply. His job was to take the money & do the purchases. Most of the time it was a running credit with a rotational limit of 50Rupees or so.Since it was the lifeline for the family, never ever would he make a mistake or lose the supply. Most of his math knowledge was from these fractional transactions that he was involved in. I was surprised that at this age he knew the full details on how his mother was making ends meet.
Most of the vegetables that they grew was from the tiny garden next to the house. While the hilltop soil is very fertile, there are only specific vegetables that can be grown. If there was nothing available for the day, they would just crush a chilly with onion & salt – use that as the side.
Apart from all these hardship, the family was doing good. The kid was going to school, he had dreams to see a better food menu on the table. Make a short travel to nearest town and most important to get his family out of some financial struggle. All this at the tender age of 7 years. So in his eyes, the 20 Rupees had shot up the family’s current week income to almost twofold. Which meant that more rice and the possibly some extra vegetables too.
It is during such instances that the whole world around you starts to make no sense, there are millions of such families that can only dream of having a decent meal on the table and then there are places that waste so much food. Is it true that hell and heaven exist right here ? Possibly one would earn, spend & over-eat to slowly die of meaningless diseases in hell or be in  heavenly side to understand the true purpose of life as it unfolds into something beautiful.

It has been 12 years now and this kid would be a grown up man, not sure if I can meet him. But I would not be shocked to see if he grew up to be a smart educated man walking sucessfully towards his goals.

I went back to work with this incident in my head, for the next many weeks it was difficult for me to go to a restaurant and order some food, the calculations were totally off the charts. The family that I had met had no phone, no email or no postal address. Till date, when I am in trouble I do remember this kid and think about ‘what could go worse?’ there must be a hill out there somewhere on which I can build a small house and live. The economy is the GMO carrot tied to the tail of the human donkey.

The medicine industry is catching up in numbers with food industry and that looks like a symbiotic relationship between two economies. While the poor deal with nutrition issues, the affluent nations are facing diseases caused due to over eating. There was a time when having diabetes and pressure was a symbol of being well to do in the society. We pay huge amounts of money to consume food that has zero nutritional value and then pay more for the healthcare.

God only knows if this is what ‘Kalyuga’ was meant to be or the worse is yet to come…